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“We’re always wanting to spend and promise and spend and borrow, but not cut,” the Republican lawmaker said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “We’ve got to get real about this. We’re headed down the road that Europe’s already on.”

Shelby was one of eight members — who hailed from both sides of the aisle — to oppose the Senate’s fiscal cliff offer earlier this week. He slammed the final deal for not tackling issues like entitlement reform. The agreement extended Bush-era tax cuts for families making under $450,000 a year and warded off sequestration for another two months but did not take serious action on the debt or entitlements.

“I [would have liked] to see a grand bargain,” he said. “And I believe you never know — if we would have held out, maybe it would have done something. The pressure was building on the president to do something. He certainly doesn’t want us to go into recession. But we need fundamental tax reform. We need to reform our entitlements. We need to look at the spending ledger.”

The senator also had tough words for the 85 Republicans in the House of Representatives that backed the final deal.

“I think it was a mistake that they did it,” he said. He added that while he was proud of those in the GOP who “understood what this was, they had a chance to reflect on it … the ones that voted for it, I think they will rue the day.”

Shelby is a hypocrite. He's the King of Pork in Alabama with his snout stuck firmly in the goverment feeding trough funneling federal dollars to his compadres.

Pork Parade - Senator Richard Shelby Alabama's senior Senator Richard Shelby (R) takes great care of his former staffers... and their high paying clients too. CREW researchers found eight former Shelby staffers who have left his office to join or create lobbying firms and nearly $267 million in federal earmarks going to clients of former staffers since Fiscal Year 2008. In return, lobbying firms and clients have donated almost $1 million to his campaign committee and leadership PAC since 1999. Meanwhile, the lobbying firms employing former staffers of Sen. Shelby have collected over $10 million in lobbying fees from the former staffers' clients since 2007.

Unfortunately, as CREW uncovered in our previous Pork Parade project, this is business as usual in Washington. Too many members of Congress use the federal treasury as a personal checking account to support their friends, family and favorite donors.

CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said:

"Sen. Shelby, like Rep. Murtha before him, takes trading earmarks for campaign dollars to a level most members of Congress can only dream about. Like Murtha, Shelby earmarks for the benefit of his former staffers turned lobbyists. It seems pork barrel spending knows no party limits." Sloan also noted, "Ironically, Shelby has been quick to condemn the Obama administration for its spending. It's always the other guy who is wasting our hard-earned taxpayer dollars." John Bresnahan and Manu Raju covered CREW's report in Politico:

"In a mix of revolving-door and campaign finance politics, the same organizations that have enjoyed Shelby's earmarks have seen their lobbyists and employees contribute nearly $1 million to Shelby's campaign and political action committee since 1999, according to federal records." "Shelby, elected to the Senate in 1986, has long been one of the most prodigious earmarkers in Congress, and he's unapologetic about sending money back home."

It is ironic and hypocritical that bozo Sen. Shelby, Sen. Graham, et al GOPeons are always saying that America is becoming Europe when the financial problems that Europeans are facing were caused by the US-Wall St. and similiar subprime mortgage and risky derivatives-trading rich banksters in their own countries that brought down the US and global economy. The Europen response has been one of austerity that the GOP want to bludgeon the US working class with that has stifled growth in Europe and lead to massive unemployment.

If the US followed Europe we would have a single-payer healthcare system, would pay half as much for healthcare and prescription drugs, and would be able to spend twice as much time with our family while retiring years earlier.

Senator Shelby is a typical southern Senator. His concern is not to represent the average Alabamian (and I am one) but the elitist and wealthy Alabamian. (and associated corporations and foreign interests) It's difficult to throw out an elected official in Alabama. Once elected, it's like the Supreme Court, it's for life.

And the "pied piper" continues to play his SWEET music to the demo-crats and other Americans, chorused by the national media, while he practices the Reagan proven policy that your enemy can be defeated by unrestrained spending until the government collapses. The "piper" is leading the demo-crats and now the Republicans to the water where freedom will drown. The "piper" is not worried about his US legacy and he is grinning big ear to big ear at how easy it is to realize "Dreams of his Father" when supported by 51% OF Americans and when the deed is done he will be hailed around the world as the most remarkable man of all time. He defeated America without firing a shot.

This article could be cut from the headlines in 1992. This is EXACTLY what the nimrods said then, too.

The economy is set up EXACTLY like it was then if not better. Both Europe and America have nowhere to go but up...and now we have a fair tax policy, but less than under Clinton.

Congress can't even kill the recovery now. Think about the rancorous brawls between Gingrich and Clinton..and it just kept getting better.

Two differences: 1. We owe a little more money, but the debt is manageable, even if by sequester. 2. The eligible work-force is much smaller than '92, due to the aging of the baby boomers. Companies will be begging for workers, maybe as early as this year.

What is wrong with this guy. The top 1% paid 33% taxes in 1986, today they pay 23%. What has been cut contunally is contributions, so we have less to spend on our society even thought the American people want us to spend it. The Republicans have increased military/defense spending by $600 billion a year in the last 12 years, but that's not a problem??????? When the biggest cities in America become like Lagos, Nigeria, maybe then they'll see they have a problem.....

Shelby should get out more, or learn something about Europe. Britain and Spain have damaged their economies and prolonged the recession by pushing austerity cutbacks over growth, and the cutbacks the GOP has been calling for would be far more drastic than anything any other developed country has attempted.

LynneCa: "Shelby is a hypocrite. He's the King of Pork in Alabama with his snout stuck firmly in the government feeding trough funneling federal dollars to his compadres. "

Exactly.. In 2010, Shelby filibustered the Senate and held up 70 Presidential nominations because he wanted pork for two earmark projects in Alabama:

Richard Shelby Holds Up Senate for Home State Pork

Excerpt from the article:

In a gaggle with reporters this morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said "if you needed one example of what's wrong with this town, it might be that one senator can hold up 70 qualified individuals to make government work better because he didn't get his earmarks."

"It boggles the mind to hold up qualified nominees for positions that are needed to perform functions in a government because you didn't get two earmarks," he added.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has confirmed to reporters that Shelby had put a "blanket hold" on most pending nominations. (A hold is essentially a promise to keep a piece of Senate business from being considered via the Senate's convoluted procedural rules.)

Shelby at least voted right this time. This garbage legislation does nothing for the long term fiscal solvency for the Country. And that's just what Democrats wanted. See can. Kick can. Cowards each and every person who voted for this.

Contribute to the Tea Party PAC and maybe we can stop some of this in 2014 and 2016. Republicans that voted for this are no better than democrats. They should have voted this down and then introduced a bill that would extend all the tax cuts with none of the garbage that democrats always throw in.